>> my mother graduated 1970 from one of the last segregated high schools in the state, in the country rather, in south carolina. i think about all the opportunities that weren't afforded her coming out of segregation. i bring that perspective to oregon, saying my mom was a rural kid that did not have a lot of opportunities. i make sure i bring that for all the kids in oregon. >> watched new members of congress on next week, starting at 9:30 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> here is what is coming up on c-span. next, it is book tv's author interview program after words with the former president of anheuser-busch, anson frericks. then from the oval office, president trump signs two executive orders. and later, remarks from vice president jd vance at the munich security conference. >> c-span, democracy unfiltered.

we are funded by these television companies and more, and shooting -- and more, including charter communications. >> charter is proud to be recognized as one of the best internet providers. we are just getting started. building 100,000 miles of new infrastructure to reach those who need it most. >> charterommunications supports c-span as a public service, along with these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. >> now on book tv's author interview program afterwards, former anheuser-busch executive anson frericks offers his insights into the bud light controversy and the future of the company. he's interviewed by competitive enterprise institute senior fellow richard morrison. after words is a weekly interview program with guest host interviewing top nonfiction authors about their latest work.

richard: thanks for being with us. ning. now your book covers a lot of territory. 150 years. one iconic american company to 20 some years of your own career and a great deal of changes in corporate america and globalization and some environmental, social and political themes that have been becoming dramatic and and in america in the past ten years. so with all of that which hopefully we'll get into all of it. the real question why did you write this book? why did write this book? because i think there's been really a lot of things have wrong in corporate america over the last ten years. i think corporate america used to be a unifying force here in the united states where people come together based off of really a mission to try and achieve a mission of a company. and that's came for and people didn't matter if you were white, gay, straight, democrat or republican you used to come into the workforce, that was something that actually brought us together. and we usually had our politics outside of the workforce and it

really over the last ten years really kind of those two factors they combined together. you had corporate america being increasingly politicized. i think it fractured this country than it's been fractured in the past. and think that we saw a lot of bad things that happened when corporate america involved in a lot of political issues, whether it was companies advocating to defund the police or overturn election laws or get involved in certain transgender ideology as well. i think it was frankly bad for business, bad for american free market capitalism, which has created some of the most prosperous and wealthy societies in the history of the world. but then also, i think it was bad for our democracy that we live in instead of individual citizens being able to vote at the ballot box for initiatives that they want to see enacted in their local communities. all of sudden they had large corporations, ceos others opining on a lot of these political issues. so the book is really about kind of what went wrong in corporate america in the last ten years, how it led to a more fragment society. i think most importantly, what we do moving forward to get back to a society where we have business focused business.

we have government focused on government and why that's going to be good for for the american experiment moving forward. you know so it's interesting i found it fascinating that although he voiced of concerns and complaints along way with some of the you know the companies work for and the bosses you've had that. i feel like your book is kind of a love letter to corporate america or at least what you know, what it could and should be. and i think that might maybe surprise some people who think of the corporate world as being as being boring or drab, you know, that it's it's not exciting. it's all about being counted and things like that. and so, you know, i wonder, you know, how would you talk to a skeptic who sort of has a negative view of of life in corporate america and describe how being a corporate executive can be fun and exciting and fulfilling. i think most importantly, i think it's a love letter maybe to american capitalism. and here in the us you can come in, you can create amazing companies. each company usually has an amazing entrepreneurial american

story. i think anheuser-busch is one of those started by a couple immigrants in the late 1860s, 1870s, survive things like prohibition over over over the years and went on to thrive. they created the world's largest beer company. and i think from a corporate standpoint, i still think there's some be said that most people this country, they continue to work at large companies large organizations, large organizations. they provide a lot of stability. they provide good they provide a lot of innovation that we like to see in in the u.s. and for a lot of people, it's an opportunity advance in your career to move up, to get promotions. and so there's a lot of things that i think are good about large organizations, good companies. i think a lot of those things were really lost over the last ten years. but in america, it's sort of lost its focus. it lost its mission, it lost what it was supposed to be doing, which is creating great products, services serve its customer service, shareholders. and we got lost in towards this more we can get a little bit at stakeholder capitalism model where businesses are supposed to be everything to everyone ultimately earned and ended up serving nobody and. the people that really lost were

the american consumer and i think a lot of employees at companies as well ended up losing their jobs when companies they lost lot of customers and i think bud light was the became the poster child of this movement where instead of a campaign that brought people together, even in millions of customers, company, billions of dollars of shareholder value, thousands of employees lost their jobs across anheuser-busch, its suppliers and its wholesaler. the company's not better off for it. so that's the bad part of corporate america. but i think the good is there's a lot of things companies do to create jobs, create innovation, create products and services, be parts of communities, provide stability. and that's, i think, the good part of corporate america that i to bring back. yeah. and corporate america is part of it. but of course, a lot of the biggest companies that we know and that in the headlines are global, international corporation. and you joined anheuser-busch, an iconic american company, probably one of the most famous brands out there early in your career, but most of your time, as you describe in the book was spent working for bosses brazil and belgium since anheuser-busch

was bought by the larger company inbev many years ago. so you talk about which i thought was very interesting not, always taking the american side, but pointing out anheuser-busch as an american company has its advantages and disadvantages. and the the conglomerate inbev had had its own pluses and minuses as well. how did that that sort of ferment between a traditional american company and a big international conglomerate what effect did have on your career and what does it what does it say about american capitalism? some of the most famous american aren't really american owned anymore. yeah, i think there's a couple of issues point i think where we're heading going forward is we're heading much more towards sort a companies need to have american where we're obviously heading more towards a donald trump america first agenda and maybe over the last 20 years when you had organizations that

might have been more global organizations companies were coming in buying american companies had part of more of a global agenda as long as they at least shared somewhat values american cultural values abided by american laws at the time we allowed companies to continue to to go on and consolidate and do mergers. i think where we're heading moving forward i don't know if that's going to the case anymore because we've seen a lot of problems over the last 20 years with foreign entities coming in, buying great american institution are coming into the u.s. and to some degree almost subverting sort of american. you're seeing it playing out right now with what's going on with tick tock, where why tick tock being potentially banned in the u.s. because tick tock is obviously owned by china. their control to a large degree by chinese communist party. tick tock is collecting a lot of data on american citizens. they are potentially giving american citizens information, seeing data that that might be contradictory to sort of american values and free speech. so there's a lot of pressure right now to actually have tick

tock sell the u.s. because it's not helping sort of the the american goals and contributing to kind of america first agenda. i think with something anheuser-busch as well. we're in an interesting because anheuser-busch and a lot of other companies over the last 20 years they came to the u.s., a company called inbev. it was owned by a couple brazilians. they had consolidated the south american beer market. then they bought this company, inter brew, which is over in europe, which on stella and hoegaarden left. they came in and bought. this happened in 2008 and for the 2000 it's really the 2000. i'll call 1718 time period. actually, there was a lot of shared cultural similarities. companies believed in meritocracy. companies believed in sort of this american dream. companies believed in sort of american free market capitalism, being able to to to grow. but really, in this 20, 2018, 2019 time period, a lot of companies adopted, not necessarily american free market shareholder capitalism is not and friedman says was that the purpose of a corporation which is to focus on shareholders but a lot of them adopted this

european capitalism model that was the sort of the klaus schwab economic forum, more the davos sort of crowd that said that the purpose of a corporation is to focus on all of stakeholders, not just its shareholders. and that's a model that may have worked in europe for certain reasons, even though that model has shown versus the u.s. model have substandard returns. and then less relevance in terms of being able to produce better economic returns, lower inflation rates, lower unemployment, but all of a sudden anheuser-busch really adopted this stakeholder capitalism model. esg, dti are really so environmental social governance, diversity, equity, inclusion, a lot of those programs came in in this sort of same timeframe. and given all the reasons why that happened. but i think that that sort of problem, that when all of a sudden that we're subverting sort of this american capitalism model that used to be much more sort of free based companies could pursue their own mission, they can have their own cultures. they could hire whatever way they wanted to. but now you're bringing these other sort of outside factors.

and certainly i think the foreign owned companies were more susceptible than others because were based in europe or they're based in china. and so they have to abide by some of the european and chinese regulations, which i think come into the u.s. and that's where i really things being problematic moving forward. if sort of these foreign companies are coming in, putting in foreign values into american, subverting sort of the culture of these companies and making their u.s. counterparts less and less competitive. that's the big problem that i see going forward with foreign owned companies owning here in the u.s. and it might be a reason to start having more u.s. ownership maybe some of these businesses should sell their u.s. units, as we're seeing with what's going on with tick tock right now. so you mentioned the difference between the traditional shareholder focused approach of capitalism as famously described by milton friedman, quote, milton friedman's famous new york times article from section that the purpose of a corporation is to maximize its profits and serve its shareholders. but if we go to if we look at

the like you said, the sort of european more klaus schwab oriented world economic forum aligned view of stakeholder capitalism, shareholders are just one of a corporation's many stakeholders with usually when this is described, someone will say, oh well will be a stakeholder, suppliers will be a stakeholder. the community community where a corporation appears, will be stakeholders those are often suggested. but of course they're not exhaustive. and so i wonder if you could talk a little bit about the stakeholder ism. so this idea and who gets to a stakeholder is anyone does anyone who their hand and says, i'm interested in this corporation become a stakeholder or corporations still able to define for themselves who their stakeholders who they consider important. yeah no, that's a that's a great question. i think that really gets the heart of this book is ultimately is the purpose of a corporation and who does it serve. and i think even more importantly, does it not serve.

and in the traditional view, you have milton friedman, seventies again, famous new york times op ed. so the purpose of a corporation is to its shareholders. how does it who are its shareholders? these are people that actually own have an ownership interest in the organization. and then how does it serve its shareholders? well it makes great products, services that creates revenue, that allows him to hire more employees. those employees that can create products which leads to more revenue, more innovation. the company can continue to grow it can pay taxes and it can do all the great things that a corporation does not have in the 1970s. what's interesting at the same time, the 1970s, there was this european model that that that took hold over in europe. this is this stakeholder model as put forward by klaus schwab, the world economic the davos crowd, which said no, no, no. actually, the purpose of a corporation is to serve all stakeholders. and those stakeholders, as you said, are not only the shareholders of the organization and but those are employees and those are the government. they can be activist as they can be community members, people that don't necessarily have ownership interest in the

organization, but there impacted by the company. and of course in both models the shareholder model. milton friedman of course a company has other stakeholders that are involved in the business, but the one that they hold above all other of the shareholders. you do what's best by shareholders and in all the other stakeholders will benefit long run, whereas the stakeholder model says that all stakeholders are essentially equal. it doesn't say if shareholders take precedent or employees or the government or activist or community members. so it's always been somewhat ambiguous and, nebulous and i think both systems to do two things and those two things are create better economic returns for the company and create better societal outcomes. and i just take a look at this and i take a look at both based kind of u.s. versus systems over the last 40 years. it's talk or the last 40 years. and if you take a look at sort of broad based u.s. stock market returns over the last years, take the s&p 500 and you compare that to its equivalent, europe, the s&p 500 in the u.s. has

increased on average by about 10% a year over the last 40 years, where it's european counterparts have increased by 7%. so that's a big delta, that's 3%. that might seem like a lot to you, but if you had $100,000 retirement, for example, in 1970 and invest in the u.s., it'd be worth four and a half million dollars today. whereas if you invested in europe, it'd be worth one and a half million dollars today. that's difference of the compounding of interest to the u.s. system. works well there. and the second piece is, okay, well, what was better off was the u.s. societal off than europe. i think on almost every single broad based prosperity measure, whether it's gdp growth, whether it's per capita income inflation rates, unemployment rates. i think the u.s. has beaten the european stakeholder model in that piece as so in terms of i think, you know, kind of why is that? well, it's was this very clear of what companies in the u.s. are focused on what mission is they're focused on shareholder returns. and there were a lot of other tangential benefits otherwise, whereas in europe, a lot of companies distracted and a lot of companies were trying to do things not necessarily for the mission of the or to make dollars for their shareholders, but they might have some sort of

other piece where. they're trying to work with community members. they're trying work with activists. they're trying to work with. i think that's distracting to a lot of businesses. and then ultimately it just shows when they're not as competitive, they're not able to grow as much. and then also, i think the european continent benefited, benefited either, you know, in a lot of people have wondered to the extent there has been a significant shift in american corporate governance towards, the what you call, you know, the european model, the of world economic forum model over the past several years, you know, where did it come and why? why if on one hand the traditional view is more the milton friedman view, why do we seem to have had a move in either direction? and i think one of the things in your book that really connects to this that may not be obvious to people who are just following the headlines day to day is the the background of the mortgage meltdown and the great and occupy movement.

new york also here in washington, d.c., there are two different occupy encampments back then. i remember them well. how what was the connection between that sort of rising hostility to big business, the corporate response to that, and then this sort of kind of creeping stakeholder ism, if you will, in in america, big no. that's right. so if you take look and in going over long over the last hundred years, so there has been much more of a gradual march towards more free markets, free trade, more openness, more, more liberalism, capital markets. but there's blips the way and some of those blips can happen. there's a great recession, which kind of took in fdr as new deal. and then there was other blips that have happened along the way which have led to more government regulation, more or more more tightening. i think one of the one of the last times there was actually kind of a blip in this market in this march towards more free markets, more capitalism, more, more, more interdependence was really what happened. the great recession. if you recall, during the great

recession of 2008, 2009, you had a lot of the banks. they had lent money subprime to a lot of individuals, a lot of individuals lost their homes, but a lot of banks got bailed out by the government. and there was a lot of and a lot of a lot of a lot of angst when this happened. there was a whole occupy wall street movement that happened subsequently. and a lot of banks were trying to look for ways to start repairing their image and started to look to repair their image. and there was a kind of an easy way to to do so. and there was this new idea that had up called esg environmental social governance is the house of corporations and others should work together was that term was first coined in the year 2005. it was a initiative to think about how companies and governments could work closer together. the u.s. generally kind of reflected it didn't really do anything with it, didn't anything to to touch for the first six, seven, eight years. but then after the great recession and all of a sudden how can you repair your image how can you look better this esg

looked kind of pretty good initially. hey first, companies need to be good environmental, of course, that they don't necessarily they can't pollute the environment beyond what's tolerate or you can get fined for that if an oil company doesn't want to spill oil and gas on the social side, of course can have child labor that's they don't want to do that. that would violate a lot of labor laws, governance. there's a lot of simple governance. things you won't audited. for example, you want to have board members with different viewpoints and diversity of boards. a board views all that sounded very good and they very benign. when this esg acronym first started up. but like most, you start following the money terms of where did esg go and really where esg and the stakeholder movement really sort of ramped up in a bigger way to big events, i think mckinsey in 2014, they released a status of reports and mckinsey's the big global consulting firm that a lot of corporations use called diversity matters diversity wins and they were that boards and companies that are more diverse are ones that better

economically and they use this to essentially sell a lot of their consulting services on. what became dti policies diversity equity inclusion policies for them to try and make more, even though they couldn't really replicate the results of the study. but they used it to make more money and at the same time in 2016, there another big event that happened. this is when donald gets elected president and donald trump getting elected president was a big shock to the system, especially if you're on the international order and if you were especially in your europe and your other organizations that relied on the us participate in global organizations, the paris climate agreements like the world health organization, the un human rights coalition, which trump pulled out of all of these organizations, and then all of a sudden there was a big reaction that said, well, if the us in government is not going to solve existential crises of climate change, of systemic racism of human rights, etc., well then we now need businesses to do this. and you had a lot of large progressive organizations with a lot of money you had endowments like harvard, yale, you had pension funds like the university or the california

pension system, new york pension system, european sovereign wealth funds, norway, etc. they a lot of money and they started this money and they invested with large asset managers like blackrock state street vanguard, which managed almost $20 trillion worth of assets on behalf of these institutions and on behalf of kind of everyday folks like you and me with our for one case but large organizations that had almost a plurality of the assets, they started to say okay, if you're going to manage our money we want you to start solving sort of the business of the issues the big central crisis issues. the us government is no longer doing. but if you want us to work with you and invest money in your businesses, you now need to get involved in these issues. so all of a sudden in really this 2017, 2018 timeframe, you have fink, who is the head of blackrock. he starts writing letters to organizations telling them. they have to earn their social license if they are going to have blackrock support on voting matters at corporate nations or within the boardroom.

of corporations and they wield a lot of power in the boardroom because blackrock state street vanguard they are the single largest shareholders in every single corporation in almost every single corporation in america they own approximately. 25 to 30% of almost every single company with, their collective voting power. and since their biggest people, their biggest client dollars come from a lot of these progressive funds they were putting. now lot of pressure on corporations to act behave differently. the big problem this was is that if all of a sudden they were changing mission of an organization away from shareholder, which is generally sort of the principle law in the u.s., that if you are managing someone's money, you're a fiduciary for them. most pension funds and most you have an obligation to maximize the value of their dollars without inputting any political or social issues in there. this was somewhat problematic for the esg promoting asset managers that all of a sudden wanted to put esg into the corporate governance of every single organization, and that also wanted them to be able to

now philosophically manage differently more towards the stakeholder capitalism esg piece. so in 2018, larry fink was the head of called the business roundtable, along with jpmorgan and jamie dimon and others. and they got 200 of the largest companies in the u.s. to evolve the purpose of the corporation away from the milton friedman model more to this european model to appease a lot of more of the progressive pension funds and and endowments that they had. but also because now they could start selling esg labeled funds and these esg labeled funds what they would do is they might take out a tobacco company because they would say that that didn't meet certain esg characteristics of environmentally friendly. they might take out an oil gas fund. they might do some scoring systems for companies that, did not meet a certain level of diversity equity inclusion. they would take these companies out of index indices and they would charge on average three times, four times more money to

put money into a so-called esg fund, as opposed to a basic s&p 500 fund. so there you start following the money fallout from mckinsey was selling a lot of esg and services. you follow the large index funds that all of a sudden were the largest investors in the companies. they were telling companies to put in these esg measures so they could put you into an esg fund. they're going to charge investors 3 to 4 times the amount of money from. and then they changed some of the purpose of the corporation, the u.s., to make it legally able to do so, kind of leading into the 2019, 2020 covid timeframe. well, i remember when the business roundtable put out its sort of updated view of the purpose of a corporation in, the modern world, and there's a section on your in your book that sort of reflects some of the new statements that were around i read it a brief section here from the late 20 tens.

in the first category were things like anheuser-busch pledges to, quote, continue fostering an inclusive workplace so that underrepresented across our markets are not only represented but can succeed in business. the company also promised to, quote, respect human rights and our operations across value chain and quote, the thing i thought was about the brt update and then specific phrases like that that came out from various corporations was that if you had asked the ceo of that corporation, did you just start respecting human rights. today with this new statement, did you not respect anyone's human rights yesterday, surely they would have said that they had doing that all along which. makes me wonder how much of it change these new statements really were. some of that was definitely performative, because you're absolutely right. if you just think about it, whether it's or i really these are just risks that have been managing for. i mean, every company has tons risk that they have to manage.

there's hundreds of risk every company manages on a daily basis. banks have to manage interest rate risk. you have social media companies that have to manage risk related to legally allowable content online. you can have pornography online certain ways, for example, but was interesting about this, how esg was packed at the complete focus was just on the risk, the social risk and the governance. as if no other risk really mattered over this time period. and it was interesting as this whole cottage industry of consulting and lawyers. and it also asked really honed in this esg piece. this became the massive focus for every single organization, almost to the point where you didn't focus on a lot of other risk. if you think about companies that have had a lot of issues over the last couple of years, we'll get to the whole bud light piece. but bud light biggest risk, it's not really environmental, social governance. its biggest risk is brand risk because no one can really tell the difference with bud light light, coors light, it tastes the same. and 95% of people, how it distinguishes itself is really its brand other companies, silicon valley banks, silicon

valley bank they they collapsed two years ago as you might recall. and what's interesting if you are a bank, i mean, your biggest risk are essentially your interest rate risk. and your liquidity risk. that's the biggest risk you have yet. silicon valley bank, they had, i believe it was eight different committees that were dedicated to climate risk in green transit and risk and high risk and you name it risk. so it was too much of a focus, i would think on risk that had always kind of been there. but now the sun there was more performative. you have to tell again, you're blackrock state street's vanguard's, tell all of them about what you were doing specifically all these risk and heightening those relative to anything else in the same way we talk about this, you know, shareholder of or stakeholder piece, you know, you're shareholder always used to be the people that you would hold above else. of course, you have to have employees and them. well, of course you have to have suppliers and treat them well. of course you have have community members and be part of that. but always look through the lens of what's best for shareholders this is sort of the other piece, what happened from this stakeholder model is the biggest risk.

they were talking, they almost elevated these esg risk above all the other risk when a lot companies have been managing hundreds of risk for years and each rate, each company is unique, each company has its own mission. each company should look at its own risk. it needs to manage through its own lens, not necessarily through this peanut butter spread approach of esg that was foisted on all companies in america. well, you said something there, which i think is very really fascinating, which you mentioned in the book a couple times, which is that most can't tell the difference between, but like coors light, miller lite, if you take it out of the bottle and put it in an unlabeled, you know red solo cup that might be surprising to people to some viewers that someone who spent so much of their time selling bud light would would make a point of saying and but i think there's a sort of a deeper question here, which is what what exactly does it say about? consumer capitalism and. you know, america, market forces that so much of what makes a product distinct is in fact,

it's packaging, packaging and it's marketing its history rather than the product itself. and it is i mean, if you take a look at almost every single consumer product, don't care if it's shoes, beverages, food, clothes, etc., most of it, they're almost the ultimate commodities. but what they really a brand, it makes you feel something makes you feel different. and that's what we've done an amazing job marketing here in the united states about being being able to export what a lot of brands feel like. if you think about a company like. nike, for example, made it feel it makes feel like you're an athlete. you feel fit. that's what nike's brand is. budweiser. it was always the american. and it's actually interesting to me that we saw that anheuser-busch, they sell more budweiser in china than they do in the united states because it's that feeling that the export of of the american dream and i think a lot of people, especially over in china would prefer to be here in the u.s. versus over. so they do a really amazing job of building brands and building sort of a feeling that connects

with consumers. and when consumers drinking that product, they're eating that product or wearing that product, it says something them and it's sort of an emotional connection you need to build over time. and it takes a long time to build that emotional connection. and then it takes a lot of time. you're building a lot of trust with the consumer about who you are as a brand. and unfortunately, i think it's warren buffett as a great quote. it takes a lifetime, build a reputation and second to ruin it and, i think especially for brands, so to speak, that are in commoditized industries and there's other products that most american consumers can't distinguish from. i, i would like to think of myself. i can distinguish between a bud light and miller lite and of course lite. and i think of that brand. is it uniquely tasting different? but a lot of people just can't. and unfortunately then when a brand loses sort of its essence what it was, who it was targeting the emotional feeling it had, then all of a sudden people will go elsewhere very, very quickly, you know, and i wonder also if you talk about the challenge of managing a portfolio of brands because of course we talk about people are

sort of loyal or have positive ideas about companies like nike. but that's an entire giant corporation. and anything with the swoosh can be can be nike. but if you look at anheuser-busch, ab inbev, they dozens if not hundreds of of brands in different categories. how do you sort of square the circle of saying we are one company and our company has certain values and stands for certain things, but each one of our products has this different range of emotional associations. we're trying to get customers to connect with. yeah, definitely. you know, i talk about this in the book a lot and i use the example of netflix. i think they do the best job of being an organization has a very clear mission as as which they want to entertain the world that is their mission we want to entertain the world and then they do that they have tons of different shows and netflix is pretty interesting that a couple of years ago were a lot of calls for netflix to be canceled

because they were going to show a dave chappelle special where dave chappelle, the comedian was making jokes that people in. the lgbtq community did not like. but netflix held its ground, said, listen, we are not going to censor content. we're not going to censor speech at the netflix level because again, our mission is to entertain the world. but what we're going to do is we're going to put out a lot of content that people in the lgbtq community might like people more on the conservative side, might like christians, might like atheists, might like. we're going to put out a ton different content, but we're going to let the consumer choose and that's how we are think that we are going to be able to carry out our mission. that's how we're going to be able to rebuild trust. and they came out with this excellent document as well that they we want excellent individuals working and we want people that are okay to work on things that they might not be comfortable because you need to sign up for the netflix mission. and if that's not you, there might be better places to be. and i think even for a company like the same rules and logic apply just just like netflix,

they serve a bunch of different customers. they have a ton of different content, a big portfolio. anheuser-busch is the same way and that their broader mission is they dream big to create a future with more cheers. that's their global mission. that's what they're going for right now. so great. well, if you're going to create a future with more cheers, you have to be able to make people cheers that are animated, maybe more red states that are in more blue states, people that are black, white, asian gay, straight, you name it. and so they should have a whole different group of brands that supports those types of customers and if you take a look at their portfolio, they can brands like bud light, which you know, this is using the the bud light vp of marketing their words you know used to be more bratty and maybe it was out of touch. but if that's bud light and that's what bud light is and that's why customers love bud light, let bud light be bud light and then if there are other brands and bud light was never got into political issues, never touch controversial issues before. people love bud light because it was remarkably apolitical. it served democrats and republicans alike and did that because the united folks around

sports and music and beer that's what light was let bud light be that whereas a lot of more progressive beers in the anheuser-busch portfolio, they owned a lot of craft breweries in places like seattle or places like chicago and those breweries they put out more progressive. i think that they want to have think it was goose island that they put out. i it's called a gay ipa and they sold that in chicago and nobody cares. that's what chicago is and what their customer wants. so i think they just have to be clear again about the broader mission of the company they serve other, but they do it through individual unique brands. let those brands be unique. let them serve certain people. i think will be best for bud light. i think that will also be best for broader corporate america? well, and if you take even a look at stock price, netflix came out this culture of excellence document two or three years ago. their stock has been up two or three since then and they reported record subscriber and subscriber growth as well. whereas over that same time period, anheuser-busch is down almost percent from its stock

price and is still losing volume. it's still losing well, yeah. we'd be remiss, of course, if we did not talk about the most high profile anheuser-busch event of recent history, which is the now infamous marketing collaboration between bud and trans influencer dylan mulvaney, and that promotion out to be what i think everyone could agree to be sort of a pr disaster for the brand, although i thought it was interesting that in the book when you describe this, you mention that while you think dylan mulvaney was not a great brand ambassador, bud light, she might been perfectly fine for any number of other brands having to do with cosmetics, women's clothes, for example, and that it was more about the, the fit with the brand than it was a disagreement this particular individual or what what you represented but. i think you know feel free to talk about how you think all of that went and give me your top takeaways but i would say also

after all the drama the past couple of years and you know the the has sort of been recurring in the news multiple times since then. what do you think the final takeaways for other brand managers? yeah, definitely. there certain brands and i'll use the example i used ben and jerry's a lot in the book. ben and jerry's very clear about what they are as a brand. it's very different than bud light brand. and jerry says, we are going to use ice cream to a socially progressive. and so they come up with different ice creams, empowerment, which is to support women empowerment causes. they had a pick on resist brand, which was supposed to be against donald. when donald trump first won, it was a peak on resist, and they have a bunch of other different that they use and write on their website. they're very clear that we are going to use this to fight things like overturning election integrity laws, defunding the police recently wanted to give back land that's owned by americans to native american tribes. and so if we're for something like ben and jerry's, dylan mulvaney could be a perfect

person in a perfect brand ambassador because dylan mulvaney to was that the biden white house advocating for gender affirmation care advocating for biological men to compete against women in sports. so on those socially progressive causes dylan and and jerry's would have been a great sort of partnership for something like bud light which never had any sort of controversial folks that were really associated with bud light. whenever there was controversy. bud light historically, they would usually kind of sort of put the controversy really quickly and say, was an apology to a mistake. this actually as recently as 2015, in 2014, 2015 timeframe where the company had a lot of these labels on bud light and the campaign at the time was being up, whatever. so when you're drinking bud light, you're up for whatever you're up for, hanging out with your buddies, you're hanging out and going to a game but they put a lot of these labels on their on their beer brands and. those labels would say again, the perfect beer when you're up for, whatever are the perfect beer hanging out with your buddies the night, the perfect

beer for boston out a couple of your dance moves but they had one label on there that said the perfect beer for removing no from vocabulary for the night and. at the time this was even kind of before the metoo movement, but it was seen as kind of promoting know removing from your vocabulary, which it was right it kind of got into a little bit of is promoting rape culture and so there was a lot of controversy it the company very quickly they actually apologized said hey this we screwed up this shouldn't have happened and they removed that beer and the labels from the market very quickly and quickly. then everybody moved on. they didn't fight it. they didn't run from it. and that was very different than the approach they took this time with dylan mulvaney, where the company got themselves into a big issue and the partnership with dylan mulvaney probably the right partnership that was damaging in and of itself because a lot of the loyal customers that just wanted bud light to focus on football, sports and music were all of a sudden confused about now. all of a sudden they had a male dressed as audrey hepburn in a bathtub, not even knowing what march madness was, was this this is that happened during march

madness time frame. and it was just confused about marketing partnership. but then i even think more so the company's response was just as damaging. and i think for whether it's brand marketers or companies, one of the biggest takeaways is how you actually do manage when you're in a pr crisis? and i think the biggest piece you have to take accountability. this is something that the company never took at all they tried times to issue responses to the controversy with dylan mulvaney never once they actually addressed controversy by name. they never once dylan mulvaney and they were never clear about bud light was going to be or who was to serve moving forward. so they lost a lot of control and they lost a lot of the narrative and i a lot as to why the company is still down 30 almost 40% on bud light they haven't recovered any of their share. they continue to lose beer. they continue to lose customers. i think the biggest piece is if you ever want if the path to really redemption is it goes forgiveness. and i think. there's a lot of people that

would love to see anheuser-busch, bud light have a great american comeback. but for that to happen, they have to be forgiven. and to be forgiven, you have to admit that there was a mistake in the company, admitted there was a mistake, never admitted there was a controversy. and i think until that happens. they're never going to get that redemption and they're never going to be able to tell a story of this great american comeback story. so even this week, super bowl week, the companies get to almost $50 million this week on super bowl, super bowl ads are $78 million for 30 seconds, anheuser-busch. but 3 minutes worth of commercials and think this is all going to go down the drain because a lot of the consumers are not coming back. they're not drinking bud light, they're not drinking other brands because they want the company to be clear about who they're going to be, who they're going to serve, say that we made a mistake because the bud light campaign with the old mulvaney wasn't a steak based off of our hoo hoo. the was and whose existing customer was. but again, until that happens, a lot of money is going to be kind of thrown down the drain. so to your question about what are the what are the big takeaways for for brand marketers and teams, is one know your brand know your customer, give the customer what they want

and then separately, if you do make a mistake, own to it, be accountable about it, don't hide from it, don't run from it, because that's the the biggest problem you can do when you're facing a tough decision and there's a great teddy roosevelt quote about this. well, the best thing to do is the right decision the second best is the is that is the wrong. but the worst thing you can do is make no decision at all. and i think that's the piece is you got to take accountability. the path of redemption goes through forgiveness to admit why you were wrong and. people will come back and we'll give you a second chance. where i thought it was it was very interesting. you mentioned how much how much of a reservoir of goodwill there still is for brands like light and anheuser-busch. even among the people were maybe most confused even upset about that marketing campaign like kid rock, for example, who was famously seen video firing, a firing of weapon shooting up a case of bud light.

he was so angry and that that viral video clip got reposted many times on social media immediately after that. and him firing that that rifle at. the bud light in the field became, sort of a visual shorthand for people who are at the brand. but you mentioned that even kid rock himself later said that that he would love for two to to bury the hatchet and, you know, endorse bud light or, you know, be associated with bud light. and everybody would want to see the company a comeback. do you. right. but the reason that is which is, is that kid rock himself basically got an apology, an acknowledgment from the company that they screwed up. so he kid rock goes on joe rogan's podcast. he tells the story where he said a ufc ultimate fighting championship event and the ceo of anheuser-busch happened to be there. and so they up meeting and getting together and rock was was kind of going and has anheuser-busch ceo tell him how he screwed telling him how he

made wrong decisions telling him how to how he needed to stay out of politics. the owners ceo was kind of groveling said yeah, i know i get it, but can we maybe grab a beer some time and get together? and it's a two or three weeks later, kid rock, anheuser-busch ceo and some other folks flew out, met kid rock. they had some beers. they got together and kid rock said that these guys said that they screwed up and they apologize and they were unable the ceo of north america was unable to give a real answer and to give a real mea culpa and to say i'm sorry, basically because of the dui, the esg, of all of that pressure, he was really coached into saying certain things and, was not able to say other things. so kid rock kind of got that apology and kid rock felt that. now all of a sudden okay, he gets it. he understands that the company in the u.s. was under pressure, especially from its european owners and others to not really get involved in the transgender communications and really put something out to make a statement. either way. and so that's why kid rock is

back. i think other people, maybe dana white at the ultimate fighting championship, he was given $100 million. so could give $1 million. that's maybe why he's back as well. but i think just the american population is is looking for a just an admittance of that. they screwed up. and i don't think that the maybe the current executives in the people in anheuser-busch can authentically it because they've had two years to do it and they haven't. so at this point i don't think it looks very genuine, especially as some of the political winds have shifted. they would just look they're shifting in the political winds, but i think there's a real opportunity for someone to come in. in my mind, i actually the u.s. is better off. this u.s. business here is better off being sold. i think the europeans and others who own it should sell the u.s. who maybe sell it to berkshire hathaway, somebody like warren buffett, who's sitting on a couple hundred million dollars of cash by that u.s. unit. get somebody back in here to talk about now. this is back in u.s. hands. how it's back owned by by americans. we have american values. once the company screwed up the past of the past. but now we're going to write the next chapter of this great

american success story, a company that's been around for 150 years. it's prohibition. it's going to survive whole dilemma of any issue. but now it's got to get to get back to growth. so i think i think that's the path forward and. that's how the rest of the country can come around and see anheuser-busch in the same way that kid rock can. because you have to get you have to give them an authentic kind of apology makeover. well, speaking of pivoting and turning over new leaf, uh, you, of course, eventually left ab inbev and started a new career of your and again like we said, it was the book is a bit of like a love letter to, uh, to, to living in that world and working in that world. so that no doubt was a choice for you and your family. but talk to us when and why you made that choice to leave anheuser-busch and move in to your own new entrepreneurial world. it was a very difficult decision. i worked at anheuser-busch for over ten years. i worked there from 11 through

2022. so i left actually a year before the dylan mulvaney incident and when i joined anheuser-busch, i joined them because the company that they were they use more than any other one in the recruiting process. we're we're married toxicity is that you can come in here can get results doesn't matter how long you've been here what your national origin race gender sex etc. don't care. come in here, get results and then you can move up the organization very quickly. and it was really interesting for them. they thought they managed your business generally well in terms of reinvesting that they generated by managing their costs well into top line growth and that was for the first six, seven, eight years was kind of the experience that i had but really starting in that sort of 2018, 19, 20 timeframe and especially after covid, the company really changed and. i think it changed a lot with corporate america. i think there's a real seminal moment in this country, and it was really covid and then after george floyd were all of a sudden a lot companies got

pushed off mission. we spoke earlier about this shift from shareholder capitalism to stakeholder capitalism, and that really set sort of a lot of kindling up. and remember, that shift happened at 2018, 2019 timeframe. all of a sudden covid happens and every company blown off their mission for covid because there was a this so called real existential threat. i think even at the time, president trump at the time said that he was fighting an invisible enemy and even signed something called the defense production act that had, like g.e. were making ventilators. you had three making masks. you had delta airlines medical supplies. anheuser-busch is doing is doing hand sanitizer. and so all of a sudden, a lot of corporate america got off track. covid kind of kind of at least flattening the curve and keep people out of hospitals that was solved within a month or two. but then all of a sudden you have the george floyd incident that happens. george floyd gets murdered going into memorial day weekend of 2020 and then the next big sort of existential threat and an invisible enemy that that that corporate america is being called on to address by politics

goons, by the blackrock state streets, etc. was this systemic racism piece? and there's a lot of things happened afterwards where whether it was the blm movement, whether it was the a lot the diy complexes came in chief officers came in and but there was this march to essentially have all companies of a sudden putting in quota systems, putting in supplier quotas and i got really entrenched in the corporate america time and even things at anheuser-busch to change. whereas i was recruited a meritocracy. one of the principles of the company from we promote people basic based off their talents and contributions. you got all of a sudden promoted based off the diversity of your team's diversity. dashboards started to be introduced at the company. so if you were a manager, you had see what the diversity of your team was. and then during the annual performance reviews, you had to talk about the of your team there were issues as well that i saw at the company as being able even to do partnerships with certain potential suppliers. i was president of

anheuser-busch 2022 when i tried to do a partnership with black rifle coffee company and black rifle coffee company, whose mission was to serve coffee culture to people who love, including first responders, military. that was an organization that we could not do a partnership because it wasn't deemed to be dti appropriate because it wasn't inclusive enough, because it was against sort of the called the defund the police regime that was going on at the time. and so these are things that didn't make any sense to me. and then broadly, i was also living in atlanta, georgia, at this time period. and you might recall in 2021, there was this whole georgia voting rights initiative that happened. and this one, governor kemp, signed a law says you need to have an id to vote that seem that crazy to me. and it was 30 states that have that law. but corporate america's response to this was very eye opening. you had blackrock again was the very first company that came out and said, we're against this law, we're going to push back it. people, georgia, are essentially wrong. coca-cola and delta, which we're headquartered in atlanta.

then also they spoke against this law and said we're against this law, major league baseball, that you're the all-star game was in atlanta. they the all-star game that year and moved to the denver. i was going to sell a lot of beer at the all-star game and, atlanta, but then they moved to the coors field in denver. of course, field, our biggest competitor, we weren't going to sell any. so anyway, i saw lot of changes that were happening broadly in. corporate america, a lot of that was being reflected in anheuser-busch and so i was having a conversation with a buddy of mine from, high school, a guy named vivek ramaswamy, who i've known him for 25 plus years with the high together, always kept in contact. this is before ran for president and co founded i guess co-led dodge with elon musk for a period of time. we noticed all these changes on in corporate america. we thought this evolvement from this shareholder model to stakeholder capitalism model was causing a lot of companies to get involved in political and social issues that they otherwise wouldn't. we thought that those political and social issues were going to be bad for it was going to fracture a lot of the company's

customer bases and it was going to be bad for more broadly democracy because instead of against citizens deciding if they want elected officials to put in election integrity laws, instead of having that model, we thought it was a worse model to have ceos. and large corporations opining on these laws anyway at this time period we went out, we raised money from folks peter thiel, bill ackman, founders fund and we created a company called strive asset management. and what strive does is it was actually going to be it is an alternative to blackrock that company wants companies focus on stakeholders and stakeholder capitalism strive created to just be an about our support of free markets shareholder capitalism as milton friedman says going to be the the real purpose of an organization so in 2022 i left anheuser-busch to go and co-found strive strive now manages a couple billion dollars worth of worth of capital and just has a very different sort of message and mission for

corporate america, refocusing them on business, refocusing them on their products and services, refocusing them on their customers. and that's where the the strive story is still ongoing. but then a year after i left anheuser-busch, that was the time period that the dylan mulvaney partnership happened and sort of it was a colliding of both of my worlds where i had been in anheuser-busch for ten plus years. i'd president anheuser-busch sales and distribution, but i had co-founded this company called strive, which was essentially for companies to not what anheuser-busch had just done. right. and so with all of these controversial policies, whether they're the environmental, social governance, esg policies or diversity equity and inclusion policies, we've seen some dramatic changes in the past 6 to 12 months. and you've mentioned few companies in your book. i feel like you and your editors must have been editing up to the last minute before publication, because there's some very recent news in there about companies

that have reversed or walked back or changed corporate policies in particular. and of course, with election of president trump, that means we get new heads of the federal trade commission and the securities exchange and things like that. so when it comes to the threats that you describe in the book, are a lot of these trends already on their way out the door? well, i think that we're starting to see the pendulum swing, but they're definitely not on their way out the door i think that really anheuser-busch that was the straw that broke the camel's back. and that was an eye opening moment for, i think, of corporate america because prior to this, you saw companies that were getting involved in social and political issues. you saw the nflx had gotten involved in sort of the players were kneeling and the blm movement was big for the nfl. but when you're the nfl company or customers have anywhere else to go, you can say you're going to boycott the nfl. but if sunday afternoon and you want to watch football, you don't really have other alternatives. so last year, the super bowl was at an all time record high,

whereas on the in even in disney was another one, disney got involved in the parental rights issues in florida, but to some degree, yes, they were somewhat hit with their stock, but still, it's only one disney world. and a lot of people are going to take their kids to disney world. i think with bud light, this became the issue where all of a sudden a lot of corporate asians open their eyes and said, wow, i don't want to become the next light because this company just definitively lost millions of customers, billions of dollars of shareholder value, and it was a company that was again, remarkably undifferentiated with their products. so that was the company that broke the straw or the straw that broke the camel's back. that's when you saw a lot of other businesses starting to retreat a little bit, really using bud light as the cover say that maybe there are certain people that don't companies getting involved in these controversial policies. and, you know, fear is contagious. so i think there was a lot of fear, corporate america and people were afraid to speak up and there was almost this preference falsifying where i don't think a lot of companies even wanted to get involved in esg. the dea mandates, they're really

told by blackrock state street vanguard's a lot of businesses, it authentic to them to put in either or either quota from a hiring standpoint or have to advertise to every single group in the world. so it was almost relief, i think also with the bud light provided cover to say, hey, we're to step back. and so you start to see companies like tractor supply company wal-mart mcdonald's, others that were kind of the first companies take a step back. harley oh of these more heartland type of companies were the first ones to kind of take a step back and say, hey, we need a pause. maybe some of the initiatives that we have going on, we're getting too involved in politics, too. and not not not close to our mission. what i think been interesting is you start to see you start to see a lot of other companies more on the coast, even you met in facebook. they took steps back. a lot of esg policies also because they saw that these policies they really start to infringe on their mission. if zuckerberg and met them, we're going to be free speech platform and have people be to open their minds. well, then they should not have to start censoring speech or

censoring at the behest of either biden administration or at behest of certain groups. the human rights campaign is a group, for example, that tries to censor a lot of speeches. it relates to lgbtq commentary. so a lot of them started walking. i think what's interesting is where we are now is that that system that hold i push back. i think that was to large degree actually helped trump win this election. you're seeing him speak to de la di a lot, pushing back it, but you still have other companies that haven't taken a step back. costco, jpmorgan are two of the more vocal ones that have said no, we're leaning into the ai we believe. and i think the big problem is is that the word diy has just become a bad word and even if they try and reframe diy to be about merit or be about excellence or just trying to be about finding the best and brightest people, i think that that narrative has lost. and if they're going to have to come up with else to explain what they're hiring policies are, what their supplier policies are, maybe they move

towards, don't know, merit excellence in intelligence. that's one that's coming up on merit excellence or intelligence or just branded something else. but i think need to be explicit about who you are as a company, to be explicit about your policies because. otherwise people are just getting confused. so i the companies that still haven't come around probably, but it's going to take a little bit of time and i think we're still going to see some ups and downs and starts the dei narrative over the next over next year or two. we are i'm curious where you think we will be, say, maybe five years of the past several years, there have been, you know quite a few interesting books about this topic. we've had the the dictatorship of capital by steve silk open woke by by your friend vivek ramaswamy and and now your own book with your own particular perspective on it. but i wonder five years from now what will the books about the big popular books about corporate america, the trends therein, what will those books

be about? so one of the reasons i wrote this book, because i hope that the next trends in corporate are getting back to being mission focused companies that are going to unleash incredible amount of technology and innovation, that are going to continue improve the living standards of the folks we have. the u.s. if you think about this country now with the wealthiest, most prosperous country on earth, i think the we could have headed a direction that was more like europe if we had adopted the stakeholder capitalism model of companies getting more involved in politics being off mission people at the companies getting involved in a lot of social political issues, not necessary getting involved in work and advancing the mission of the company. but i think we're heading now is that we should have not only tons of innovation new start ups. i even think that your existing your legacy companies think of what what facebook and twitter and x and everybody else can do if you actually allowing the number of voices to speak a number of ideas to grow to flow freely. i think we have an amazing opportunity over the next five years to unleash more innovation

and more good ideas, more free speech, more debate, more open dialog and that's going to be good for sort of the american experiment and what the america has been on this path, on over the next 250 years. as we celebrate our 250th anniversary in 2026 to unleash more what american capitalism has has produced and i hope there's going to be in five years from now new amazing companies that are new the new ai leaders that are the new technology leaders that we're going mars and that we're focused on more of those missions as opposed to having business get involved in a lot of controversial issues that are unrelated the company that are distractions that make less competitive vs versus china or versus russia or versus other other countries and other companies that really didn't go down this esg path or whole right answer. this has been a fascinating discussion and congratulations on the new book, last call for bud light. thanks for being with us. thank you very >> starting next week watch

c-span's new members of core series were we talk to republicanan democratsbo their early lives, previous careers, families and by the dissented to run forffe. watch new members of congress ne wk on c-span. here is a preview. >> i grew up on a 1000-acre cattle ranch on west texas outside of abilene. we raised beef cows. ever since i can remember, working cows, building fences, doing everything you would expect to do on a 1000-acre cattle ranch. i cannot remember a time in my life and i did not have a job. i grew up in a unique environment in rural west texas. >> wanted those experiences teach you? >> you learn the value of a dollar immediately.

i was getting paid six dollars per hour in kindergarten. i was helping my dad do whatever he needed to do on the ranch. you learn the value of a dollar and you learn how to work hard and work long. >> i was one of the first two women, it is a testament to there being some gaps in knowledge in the caucus before we joined. folks had a lot of different experiences in the caucus but they had not grown up as a queer woman in washington state. it is matters -- it matters we bring our voices into the halls of power. we get to shape legislation. it makes folks in community feel more seen and heard and respected. we have passed a lot of lgbtq protections in the legislature in washington during the first

trump administration and in advance of this month. now i'm bringing those voices with me, the experiences. >> that big family is a huge advantage to covering a big state because i have siblings living in pretty much all corners of the state. wherever i go i have a free place to stay. i am a product of my state. i was born in the western part of north dakota. my parents were children of the great depression. they nearly starved to death in western north dakota in the dirty 30's when there was no rain for a decade. as farmers that is a tough thing to get through but they did. their families persisted and they got through that and got educated and resettled in the area. my mom and dad in the far western part of the state had their eight kids, all in that part of the state and started to

raise them. i was fairly young. i was about five. we moved across the state to the eastern part in fargo and i spent my formative years there and lived there until i got into high school. then we planted in the middle of the state. i have literally covered all parts of the state in growing up. being one of eight kids, it is pretty tough to spoil that many kids. we had a lot of expectations for us brought on by my parents who were very conservative minded folks. >> as the first latina woman ever elected in the state of new jersey to represent a congressional district i am truly proud. i am truly proud not only of my roots and where i come from but i am also proud to be able to be a voice for those who really did not have a voice. i am happy to be able to

represent. it also comes with a huge amount of responsibility. i want to make sure that when you use your voice, you are using it to ensure that it is one that helps to create the opportunity for somebody people. i do not just believe that one person should represent any one group, i represent the entire new jersey ninth congressional district. i am truly proud of my roots and my upbringing and being a latina. being puerto rican is something i am very proud of. >> >> the most formative experience in my life is serving as the caregiver to the person who would become my husband during his battle with cancer. for anyone who has been diagnosed with cancer -- if you were diagnosed in your 20's as andy was, it is a punch in the gut like anything you ever experienced. you never expect to hear that

word at such a young age. from those first moments, and he and i knew how lucky we were. we knew how lucky and he was to have health insurance that would allow him to get air that would hopefully save his life -- get care but i would hopefully save his life. i focused on the full-time job of caring for him, loving him, marrying him. and to walk into his passing. i decided to run for office because i did not believe in delaware or in the united states in the wealthiest nation on earth, the time and the ability to get care should not be luck it should be the law of the land. >> starting next week watch c-span's new members of congress series where we speak with republicans democrats about the early lives, previous careers and why they decided to run for office.

on monday at 9:30 are interviews include democratic congresswoman janelle bynum, the first african-american woman elected from oregon. >> graduated from one of the last segregated high schools in south carolina and i speak about the opportunities that were not afforded her coming out of segregation and i bring that perspective to oregon. my mom was a rural kid who did not have a lot of opportunities and i will bring that forward for all kids in oregon. >> watch new members in congress all next week starting at 9:30 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> saturdays watch american history tv's 10 week series first 100 days. we will explore the early months of presidential administrations with historians, authors and through the c-span archives. we will look at accomplishments and setbacks.

up to the present day. this saturday the first 100 days of ulysses grant's presidency. he was a famous civil war general that won the white house in 1868. his campaign slogan was let us have peace. issues included reconstruction, the payment of civil war debt, civil rights and the fight against the kkk. watch first 100 days saturday at 7:00 p.m. eastern on american history tv on c-span2. >> in the oval office president donald trump signed two new executive orders. one stops federal funding to schools that have a covid vaccine mandate in place for students while the other creates the national energy dominance council which will be chaired by interior secretary doug burgum.